Shakespeare Plays Explained Badly

[Bob Schroeck]

Found on Tumblr:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Fairy divorce court causes everything in the vicinity to go to hell, briefly.

A Comedy of Errors: Don’t give your twins the same name. Seriously don’t.

As You Like It: No one actually likes anything that is occurring. Especially not Jaques.

Twelfth Night: Local pageboy causes everyone to catch Gay Feelings. Also multiple shipwrecks.

Much Ado About Nothing: Random bastard decides to cause problems for literally no reason other than because he is a dick.

Two Gentlemen of Verona: One gentleman is not actually a gentleman, he’s a grade-A turdwaffle.

Love’s Labors Lost: Four friends’ attempts to swear off love go about as well as you would expect

The Merry Wives of Winsor: SO I HEAR U LIKE FALSTAFF??

The Taming of the Shrew: Sometimes the best cure for a mean wife is just straight-up sexism. (Actually no wtf why)

All’s Well That Ends Well: Nothing is well and it ends kinda shittily, too.

The Merchant of Venice: Apparently the entire population of Venice is either dumb, shitty, or Portia. Or Jessica.

Measure for Measure: Undercover Boss: Vienna Edition

Richard II: Local king forced to actually face consequences for his actions. Doesn’t like it much.

Henry IV part 1: TURN DOWN FOR WHAT interluded by existential kingly guilt. Also Hotspur

Henry IV part 2: The boring part because no Hotspur and no TURN DOWN FOR WHAT. Just guilt and guys with stupid names.

Henry V: Fun manly bonding as France gets fucked over

Henry VI part 1: Let’s Screw France Part 2 feat. Joan of Arc

Henry VI part 2: A bunch of murders and Everything Has Gone to Shit Now nice job breaking it, Henry.

Henry VI, part 3: YORK YORK YORK YORK also a bunch of murders, part 2.

Richard III: Once there was a Duke of Gloucester. He was so ugly that everyone died. The End

Henry VIII: You’d think think the betrayal of a queen and befuckening of the church would be really non-boring but you would be wrong

King John: No one knows what’s happening. Not me, not you, certainly not Johnny. I guess an entire king dies or something idk

Romeo and Juliet: Local teenage fling ends in six deaths and a banishment. Authorities are baffled

Macbeth: If you don’t sleep you become a murderer I don’t make the rules also if witches are nearby… you’re fucked.

Hamlet: Danish prince should have just called Ghostbusters

Othello: And you thought your racist coworker was a pain in the ass

King Lear: Local shitty dad amazed that all his kids turned out shitty. How could this happen.

Julius Caesar: Fun male bonding exercise devolves into civil war and multiple accounts of suicide

Antony and Cleopatra: Two-year fling devolves into civil war and multiple accounts of suicide

Coriolanus: Local war devolves into civil war and - just kidding it’s actually about Coriolanus ruining everything by being unable to shut his piehole for two seconds

Timon of Athens: Don’t Have Friends: A Cautionary Tale

Titus Andronicus: Blood, death, murder, death, human sacrifice, rape, death, dismemberment, cannibalism, death, and a partridge in a pear tree

Troilus and Cressida: Title characters are actually the most boring part of the play

Pericles: It’s like a fairy tale except less magic and more nonsense. And brothels I guess idk

Cymbeline: Twenty three different plot lines and none of them go anywhere

The Winter’s Tale: Local asshole king fucks with nature so NATURE FUCKS RIGHT BACK

The Tempest: The heartwarming tale of a wizard, his weird magical bird slave, his daughter, a drunk fish guy, some murderers, and a whole lot of wood gathering

[classicdrogn]

Funny how the first and the last of those were the only ones of Willy Wigglestick's works I ever liked much. All the best scholars insist that the rest are very important though, so I guess it must be so.

Well, there was a Wild West style adaptation called Two Gentlemen of Deadwood that was amusing by contrast, but that was more by way of picking out the things that the considerably different setting did and didn't change.